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Faculty Support

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New meeting space at the Center for Writing and Learning

The Center for Writing and Learning facilitates new ways for faculty to learn from one another both within and across the disciplines: organizing workshops and discussions, hosting guest experts from other learning communities, and offering new forms of professional support. We aim to cultivate a teaching and learning culture that is vibrant, equitable, and unique to the Cooper community.

Much of our work this year will focus on gathering information to better understand the teaching goals and challenges of our four unique faculties as well as building out physical, virtual, and cultural spaces dedicated to faculty support. We’ll also begin supporting faculty directly, with programming that includes faculty development events, one-on-one support, and student learning initiatives that collaboratively address issues that impede student success in the classroom.

Faculty Development Events

Our formal event series presents a series of guest speakers and faculty discussions on key issues in higher education. Our first event, Teaching & Learning at Cooper: A History, featured Fabiola Barrios-Landeros, Peter Buckley, Steven Hillyer, Robert Topper, and William Villalongo discussing key moments and ideas in the history of Cooper’s classrooms and studios. This month, Asst. Professor Asilia Franklin-Phipps from SUNY New Paltz led a workshop on Online Resources for Inclusive Teaching. Future events will include experts in the field leading discussions on how faculty can harness the power of social media and how Crisis and Change in American Higher Education affect the classroom.

For a full list of 2022-23 Events.

One-on-One Faculty Support

The Center for Writing and Learning offers individualized support to faculty on a variety of different issues. We can:

  • Provide a series of sessions to help faculty develop and revise various types of professional writing like grants or journal articles
  • Consult on matters of pedagogy such as teaching reading and writing, strategies for lesson planning and syllabus design, and inclusive teaching
  • Discuss and foster interdisciplinary and experimental teaching projects

Student Learning Initiatives

Our meetings with faculty and student groups have already resulted in a number of initiatives that address student learning needs. We’re coordinating with the Engineering school to develop resources to aid student technical writing, and we’re working with Architecture on weaving thesis-writing workshops into the curriculum. In the spring, we’ll begin college-wide discussions aimed at finding resources and strategies to better help students for whom English is a new language. 

For more information, or if you'd like to meet, please contact us:

Kit Nicholls, Director: kit.nicholls@cooper.edu
John Lundberg, Associate Director: john.lundberg@cooper.edu

Location

The Center for Writing and Learning
Foundation Building | Library
7 East 7th Street
New York, NY 10003

Hours

Monday - Friday: 10 am to 6 pm

 

 

 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.